Bai Qian’s mouth twitched. After being distracted by the little fellow three times in quick succession, he had completely forgotten what he had intended to say.
He met Bai Nuo’s bright eyes. The child still held his fork. After standing on the chair to deliver the tiny piece of shrimp to Bai Jingyun, he had been pulled down by Bai Sheng and seated properly again. Now he looked at them expectantly.
As though they had truly been craving the shrimp in his bowl.
This was baby food, understand? Mild, with little oil and salt. Adults would not crave it!
In the end, Bai Qian swallowed the shrimp with a dark expression, as though consuming poison, while Bai Sheng watched him with vague confusion.
Bai Sheng: …If you dislike it that much, don’t eat it.
The old father, wiping his cub’s mouth with a tissue, thought rather sharply and then casually placed the large shrimp into his own mouth.
It tasted fine, but there was nothing remarkable about it.
“Is it tasty?”
The cub smiled with narrowed eyes and looked expectantly at the adults.
One did not strike a smiling person, especially not such a small and delicate cub.
Bai Qian’s originally cold words circled inside his mouth before he finally said, “It’s acceptable.”
The obedient Bai Nuo, focused on eating, did not mind the adults’ stubbornness. After distributing the shrimp, he immersed himself in the meal again.
From time to time, he exclaimed in wonder and called for his father.
“Daddy, this is so delicious.”
On the other side, Bai Jingyun stared at the tiny piece of shrimp in his bowl with a strange and indescribable expression.
The Bai family’s Eldest Young Master, whose mind ordinarily worked rapidly and who excelled at analysis, seemed to suffer a temporary system failure.
What did this mean?
Had Bai Sheng poisoned this shrimp in that brief instant, intending to kill him?
No. Although the Bai family’s internal conflicts were fierce, such methods were still forbidden.
Was this meant to humiliate him?
Members of the Bai family had always disliked one another. The second son spent every day in the laboratory conducting his experiments. Their fourth sister had scarcely returned home since becoming an adult, claiming she had nothing in common with them. As for the youngest, he had only begun university this year. He had entered the Bai family battlefield last and possessed the worst temper. He had established several clubs and travelled daily between school and those clubs.
In short, none of them was easy to manage.
Now another small one had arrived.
Bai Jingyun’s expression became even stranger, particularly because the cub did not direct his expectant gaze toward him at all.
After contemplating for several seconds, he expressionlessly resumed eating and pushed the shrimp fragment aside.
Whatever it meant, he did not need it.
Bai Qian, who had failed repeatedly to say what he wanted, had become numb.
He ate in silence, but by the end of the meal, he was even more speechless.
He stared in disbelief.
“Does he ordinarily eat this much? He ate nearly as much as I did.”
Bai Sheng was wiping the child’s mouth. In fact, the cub could still have put more food into his stomach, but Bai Sheng estimated he had reached the maximum Aunt Feng had recommended and stopped him from eating further.
“You simply eat too little.”
Bai Sheng placed the cub on the floor and looked with satisfaction at Bai Nuo’s little face, which seemed slightly rosier after two days under his care.
“This portion isn’t enough to overfill him.”
Bai Qian became dazed, then finally understood.
That was true. It had been almost twenty years since he had seen what a cub was like. His own appetite had remained small because of his lasting medical issues. In his memory, Alpha cubs indeed ate a great deal. Several children close in age had even fought during meals.
The little fellow before him was simply too different from the Bai cubs in his memories. His thin and pale appearance had made Bai Qian instinctively assume he would also eat little.
Enough.
He could not continue thinking about these matters.
Bai Qian returned to himself.
“You two. Come to the study with me.”
After cleaning his hands with a towel, he stood. Without looking at the cub again, he turned and went upstairs with a cold, solemn expression.
Bai Sheng handed the little monitor to the cub and told him to move around in the main hall or on the nearby open balcony. He would return to collect him shortly.
This was the main building, and servants stationed there would watch him. Bai Sheng was not worried that the child would fall or injure himself.
But when he saw the cub holding the monitor, blinking as though he wanted to speak, Bai Sheng bent down and quietly asked what was wrong.
Bai Nuo was a sensitive cub. He had noticed that both Grandpa and Eldest Uncle were in poor moods.
He whispered into his father’s ear, “Daddy, did Nuo Nuo give Grandpa too little shrimp? Did Grandpa not eat enough?”
Bai Sheng froze.
The cub’s way of thinking differed so greatly from an adult’s that it took him a moment to understand. He looked at the serious child speaking in his milky voice, then imagined the stern old traditionalist being misunderstood as someone who had stolen baby food and still had not eaten enough.
He wanted to laugh.
In the little fellow’s eyes, however, Grandpa had looked even more displeased after eating the shrimp.
But Nuo Nuo had only one small bowl.
And there was also bad Eldest Uncle—
“He only ate it at the end.”
The cub wrinkled his nose and hugged his father’s neck.
“Grandma Feng said food is best when it’s eaten warm.”
Bai Sheng finally laughed aloud.
“Daddy?”
The cub blinked.
Then his little head was rubbed twice.
He heard his father say lazily and cheerfully, “That’s right. They’re both bad.”
Bai Jingyun, who had not yet gone upstairs and stood behind them: …Hey! You’re criticising me to my face? You aren’t even pretending anymore?
The conversation in the study did not last long.
Bai Jingyun finished summarising his matters first and left before Bai Sheng.
After going downstairs, he saw the cub moving around on the open balcony.
The little fellow wore a pale yellow coat. Under the warm light, his curls looked soft as he examined one flower and then another. The servants in the main building were making all kinds of strange noises because he was so adorable. Bai Jingyun could hear them even from a distance.
The familiar little monitor followed behind Bai Nuo.
Although it was merely a cold machine, the child seemed to regard it as a playmate. Whenever he discovered something new, he called, “Hello, Doudou,” and asked the monitor to come look with him.
Finally, he listened with a confused expression while the monitor read an online encyclopaedia entry about the plant.
Afterward, it was obvious he had not understood much, yet he still raised his little hands and applauded the monitor.
Bai Jingyun: …
What was this?
Was the child’s main skill providing emotional support?
Bai Jingyun continued descending the stairs while watching him.
The little fellow looked over happily and almost raised his hand. But after seeing who had come downstairs, he blinked, pouted, and lowered his hand.
Then he sat on a small chair by the door with his back toward Bai Jingyun and turned the little monitor away from him as well.
Bai Jingyun: …
Ordinarily, after encountering such rejection, Bai Jingyun should have left without looking back.
But perhaps because of his guilt from the previous day, or because of the inexplicable shrimp today, he paused.
In the end, he changed direction and walked toward the cub.
Bai Nuo had heard movement behind him and initially thought Daddy had come downstairs. He had been about to show Daddy the interesting things he had discovered.
But after realising it was Eldest Uncle, he immediately remembered his father’s warning and pulled his hand back.
Daddy had said he must not look at Eldest Uncle!
The little fellow even deliberately adjusted the direction of the monitor’s camera.
He almost curled himself into a ball, but Bai Jingyun still approached.
Bai Jingyun crouched beside him and looked sideways at the child.
Even while crouching, the exceptionally tall Bai family member remained considerably higher than the tiny cub.
“…What did that piece of shrimp mean? Surely you learned your lesson yesterday.”
Bai Jingyun’s voice was cold and direct, though very quiet.
Then he heard the child answer softly while trying to move his little head farther away.
“Nuo Nuo doesn’t speak to bad Eldest Uncle.”
The appearance of a child thinking, Daddy told me not to pay attention to bad people, was both amusing and irritating.
“Was it because you couldn’t finish it, so you gave it to me?”
Or had the shrimp failed to please the child?
Bai Jingyun looked ahead and spoke again.
Still, it did not matter if the child refused to answer.
They probably would not have many opportunities to interact in the future.
So why had he inexplicably walked over as though he had lost his mind?
Bai Jingyun was about to stand.
But the cub’s childish voice came from beside him.
“But everyone else had some. Wouldn’t it have been bad if Eldest Uncle had none?”
What?
Bai Jingyun froze and lowered his head.
The cub swung his short legs from the chair and finally looked up at him.
“Also, bad Eldest Uncle was looking at Nuo Nuo. And in the end, you ate it, didn’t you?”
Because he had also been looking at Nuo Nuo, Nuo Nuo gave him some.
It was that simple.
I…was watching the child the entire time?
Bai Jingyun became speechless and vaguely dazed.
Competition within the Bai family had always been cruel.
There was no such thing as everyone receiving something. If one competed, one fought for the highest position. If one wanted something, one had to be first. What kind of qualified Bai family member was an eldest son who could not even defeat his younger siblings?
Bai Jingyun had heard such words many times.
But in the end, he truly had eaten the shrimp he had initially pushed aside.
He possessed many cold and merciless words and many methods that made others suffer. Yet when facing this child, he discovered that he did not know how to respond.
At that moment, he could not even empathise with his former self.
When he had first heard that Bai Sheng suddenly possessed a cub, mockery and amusement had nearly overflowed from him.
Now, for one strange instant, he even thought:
Why hadn’t those people chosen me instead?
No, no…
That thought was far too strange.
As though trying to hide his reaction, Bai Jingyun took a mandarin from a nearby fruit plate and efficiently peeled it. He held a segment toward the child.
His words were concise.
“An apology.”
He was offering the mandarin to apologise for the previous day.
Then the cub’s face wrinkled. Apparently traumatised, he shrank backward and shook his head vigorously.
“Nuo Nuo doesn’t want it.”
“It’s sweet.”
“Nuo Nuo doesn’t believe you.”
The cub picked up the little monitor and watched him warily.
Bai Jingyun placed a segment into his own mouth and chewed.
“It really is. I’m not lying.”
But—
“Yesterday, Eldest Uncle’s lemon ‘hit’ Nuo Nuo the same way.”
Eldest Uncle had eaten an entire slice yesterday before deceiving Nuo Nuo.
Nuo Nuo had seen through everything!
Nuo Nuo was an intelligent cub!
“And Nuo Nuo thinks Eldest Uncle’s sense of taste is broken, or your preferences are strange. Nuo Nuo only believes Daddy. Nuo Nuo’s Daddy is the best!”
In any case, Nuo Nuo would not believe a single punctuation mark in anything he said!
The little fellow looked as though he might recommend that Bai Jingyun see a doctor about his sense of taste.
What did he mean, my preferences are strange?
Bai Jingyun’s temple twitched.
For the first time in his life, he experienced the consequences of the boy who cried wolf.
Then he heard movement behind him.
He also heard Bai Sheng’s light, cheerful footsteps.
Hah.
Naturally Bai Sheng was in a good mood. Compared with a bad eldest uncle with strange tastes, being called Nuo Nuo’s best daddy must have sounded very, very delightful.
Author’s Note:
Cub Nuo: Looks at the lemon, looks at the mandarin, looks at Eldest Uncle—it’s the same. Exactly the same as yesterday! [Hugs the little monitor tightly]
Eldest Uncle: Today’s mandarin tastes a little sour too.
[One place in the crematorium for an uncle chasing after the cub’s affection. Please enter.]